Today in the garden, I...

I know, who needs yet another thread? Well, I do. LOL!

Today in the garden I planted two agastache, two erysimum, and one veronica, all of which I broke down and bought as plants. Helps to fill it out a bit. Most of my sunflower seedlings at one end are totally munched by some kind of caterpillar, but what the heck. I like butterflies, so hopefully there will be enough to go around. Anyway, I needed something to anchor that end of the garden, so.

I discovered a lovely blue flower a-bloomin in the CA wildflower mix. There is a bud on one of the columbine babies. Many of the seeds I direct sowed a few days ago are starting to sprout. The compost is hot. Oh, and buds on two of the Morning Glories, too. And the glads are showing their spears.

I performed triage on the remaining tomato seedlings I had not potted in their penultimate homes (those ones are in 3 inch cow pots and looking like little trees I am happy to report. They will go into big containers and move permanently out to the deck toward the end of this month.) The laggards were looking like death warmed over and I did not have room for most of them (great germination rate, wow!) so chose the ones that looked the best and put them in the pots I had been able to empty from other stuff, so nine more babies but now there is room for everyone in the various seedling areas.

I planted morning glory starts in several containers, and also planted the hyacinth bean. Saw some direct sown MG sprouting and probably killed one of them trying to remove its seed case, la stupida! I also stepped on my jug of Penstemon strictus sproutlets as I was wending my way over to the containers of potting mix ingredients. It is so crowded over there I'm really surprised I have not done that before already! Fortunately I only spilled a little of the potting mix and it looks like all the seedlings survived. Sheesh.

Then I decided I better put up the shade cloth as it is predicted to get up to ninety on Sunday and be much warmer than now from tomorrow on.

Well, it's up, but not quite as neatly as I envisioned it...... Did you know you can actually cut yourself and draw blood, on shade cloth?????? I didn't either. And of course I pounded my thumb with the hammer nailing up the 1-by the shade cloth was wrapped around and secured sort of with wire, but not too bad, only about a quarter of the thumbnail is purple...... and I did not even curse, boy I have lost my edge! Wow!

All in all, a good day. Wishing for pictures to share, though.

Wow, you've been busy! Good job, but please, no more injuries. We need you to have all your fingers so you can write about your adventures.

All I did today was shuffle some potted plants that aren't getting enough water and pull a few weeds. Speaking of weeds I noticed that the horseradish I tried to evict from the tomato bed last fall has come back with a vengance. Any want some horseradish?

Thank you, ma'am. I assure you the injuries are quite minor.

I understand horseradish is invasive and I think I will pass as I don't like to eat it enough to deal with it. The Egyptian walking onions you gave me are doing quite nicely as is the chocolate mint. ;-)

Shuffling pots and pulling weeds sounds lovely, days when that's all to do are nice days, IMO, and I can spend most of my energy just enjoying the garden.

Kyla, you have indeed been busy, try not to wound yourself.

I have done three dozen tomato plants in gallon pots deep watering them by putting them in pails until they quit bubbling. They are getting so big the foliage sucks all the water out of the pots fast and I am not potting them into bigger pots. Those are terribly difficult when it gets to planting time.

I also am in trouble with the town for my piles of grass clippings. Seems they have passed an ordnance when I was not looking. I am decidedly upset. But someone wants to run against the current mayor, who I alienated a few years back, so I will see what I can do about it all.

Still working on everything else outside too. Am starting to get more done on the second lot as the one the house is on is fairly under control. As such things go...

Hey, Mulch! How long do those toms have to stay in their pots? 3 dozen is a lot, though I know some folks are busy with 3 hundred, but still. I think ten or so is a heck of a lot for me.........

bummer about your grass clippings! If we had perfected our matter transporter I would be happy to store them in exchange for some. ;-) Good luck with the local politics, geeze.

I can see the campaign now: Big green signs saying "Free the Grass Clipping 7!" or however many piles there are..... tee hee.

Kyla,
Maybe you can come help me with the campaign...

I have over fifty of the gallon pots with tomatoes, I have to deep water the rest tomorrow, so they will all be able to survive Saturday when I go fishing all day. I will probably have to start planting the biggest ones in the ground next week as they will be too difficult to keep watered at the rate they are developing. They also are starting to bump the glass ceiling in the heated section where they sit on the bench.

I knew it would get challenging when I started them so early, but by golly, I am having tomatoes this year! But three hundred would be far too many for me. I probably have around 70 including the younger ones not in gallon pots.

wow I am truly impressed. With that kind of dedication you better by god have toms, or the tomato deva is gonna hear from me! ;-)

Wow Kyla, it sounds like you're finally getting to see some of the fruits of your labor. I think I'm getting to seedling burn out from trying to manage all mine in such a small space. I can't imagine having to know turn around and start protecting them from the sun too! Anyway, I finished putting all mine in the ground over the past 2 weeks, ready or not. I figure it's survival of the fittest and I had extra of most everything anyway. Now I we just have to protect them from ourselves and our little garden accidents. : ) Good luck.

Kyla you have been a busy, busy girl! Shorts weather tomorrow here YIPPEE! so I will be busy, busy too. Potting up toms is a chore mulch but I do like to do it to get them to root up the stem alot so they don't need so much watering. Ok I'm biting. What on earth have they decided is bad about grass clippings? Are they too organic? (This is reallllly going to be a stupidpeople's law I bet). KTalia still too early for me to plant out yet. It's supposed to s*n*o*w next week.

SNOW! For Pete's sake. That's intolerable. Cheery hugs for Dahlia and her poor baby's that have to get cold... Again.

Yeah, there should be a law against snow in May. That much more reasonable than a law against grass clippings.

Today is doubly significant for me. It's Bike-to-work day (and yes, I rode my bike) and it's also Endangered Species day and much of my job deals with endangered species. And, it's a lovely day outside and I get to home an hour early to enjoy it! Yipee!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day too.

Katlian, it sounds like the type of day that just makes your heart skip a beat and makes you want to love everyone and everything. Oh, and a great start to a weekend too!

Happy Endangered Species Day everyone! I never know how to celebrate this day because hugging an endangered species would not be good.

Well, if you have a really good husband that adores you, you can start there. Talking with other moms I find it sad that so many seem so miserable with there marriages. I've decided my husband is an endangered species.

That is so true KTalia and a brilliant idea. I think I will do a little habitat cleanup later today too (just in case there is a burrowing owl in my lane).

Personally I think that just being aware of endangered species and holding the desire that they flourish is wonderful, and I celebrate that attitude whenever I encounter it. DN, that you know your local ES (or one of them) is a plus because most people do not, me included as I have really not looked into the local fauna situation much as of yet.

I will celebrate Endangered Species Day by reaffirming my commitment to liberation and thrival for all species in harmony. Whatever is endangered and yet valued within us included.

Scuse the flight there, have not yet had coffee, going to go do that now. But Katlian, thanks for the heads up. ;-)

If everyone thought like you Kyla there would be no endangered species. I became aware when I worked in the arctic because I was involved in protecting peregrine falcon nesting sites and caribou calving grounds. I was so overwhelmed by the wildlife up there.

Very cool work. Maybe I'll watch some planet earth to celebrate tonight.

Yesterday in the garden I planted my currents and gooseberries. My dear husband dug the whole for the tree too close to the other tree. Then like a gem, filled in that hole and stared digging a new one, and hit the sprinkler pipe. That's when we stopped for the day. So the cherry is in a very large pot for right now.

oops

Yah. Kind of a bummer but fixable and we'll just have to rework the plans. Unfortunatly the people who lived in our house before us where idiots. The sprinklers are only about 9 inches down (code is like 3 ft) and they did it in a radial patter. So all the lines spread out under the lawn instead of on the edges. There's a bunch of little things like that that make me bonkers but we're fixing what we can and dealing with what we cant.

LOL, yeah, kinda like life, fix what we can and deal with the rest. ;-)

This morning I went out and re-arranged containers so those that most need the shade of newly "installed" shade cloth are under it....... already hot out there. This did mess up the lovely feng shui I had going but it is totally a work in progress and there are more developments to come shortly that will, I trust, balance the space out again.

I'm constantly moving containers around. I think my container feng shui went bye-bye a long time ago. My east blue gate though is still happening and it makes me smile when people are drawn to it.

Feng shui is a moveable feast.

Have we seen pictures of the East Blue Gate, Dahlia, and did I miss them?

I my head my garden space looks better than it is now. Lol. I have a tendency to think of how it'll look with the plants grown. Then when it looks all bare I end up planting a bunch of other stuff and then it's a jungel. I like the idea of a colored gate.

I will find a summer pic with the blue gate and post it.

Duchess I do the exact same thing. I think of it as etheric gardening, a necessary creative step. ;-)

DN looking forward to seeing that gate.

Everyone must have been out enjoying the beautiful weather today.

Duchess, my garden looks better in my head than in real life. I imagine the flagstone patio is finished and the vines have grwon up to shade the house and all the flowers are blooming. My imaginary garden is also completely weed free :)

Today in the garden I built a shade house for my little plants that were getting roasted. A friend gave me an old piece of shade cloth so I scrounged up a couple of t posts, some old pvc pipe and misc hardware. I'm not sure how well it will stand up to a serious wind storm but it works for now.

I also aquired a string trimmer and cut the grass that was almost a foot tall in places. It's a good thing we don't have an HOA.

The best part of all was eating the first strawberry of the summer. It was super yummy. I had to restrain myself and let it get fully ripe before tasting.

Nice!

It was hot here today and going to get hotter tomorrow and Monday, then cool down a bit...... so I got out early and watered mostly where I have put seeds out, don't know if that is going to work but maybe some will..... and stirred the compost and added some things, watered it too.......

Then I discovered I actually like radishes! I had planted them because they produce fast and I wanted that reward, but I have never really liked them in salads...... but I pulled a bunch that were nice sized and washed them and they looked so nice I thought I would try eating one just plain and it was very good! I ended up eating four or five. Yum!

My violet verbascum has flowers open.

Sitting out under the shade cloth is pretty nice. I have to get a thermometer though; at one point today weather underground said it was 93, NOAA said it was 103, and weather.com said it was 83. Good grief.

One morning glory bloomed outside today.

The blue garden gate sounds like a very fun thing Dahlianut. And yes Katlian, I think you're right, people must be very busy outside. It seems to me that the weather has just jumped from one extreme to the next in just two weeks. Doesn't hardly seem long enough to get the little plants in the ground and established, let alone seeds. I haven't really been through many springs, is it always this way?

Today I went to a plant auction for the Herb Society here in Denver. I won a cute 3foot Sweet Bay potted standard for $20, great deal I'm thinking. A paste tomato plant for $5 dollars, and I also picked up an artichoke plant and a Jostaberry? I'm thinking maybe I don't have room for the Jostaberry now that I know what it is. The plant was only 2inches so I didn't realized it gets about 10feet!!! I worked in the tomato and the artichoke just before sunset.

I went around and took photos of a bunch of plants I didn't have photos of yet for my journal. I find that helps me keep them straight later when I'm wondering what the heck something was that I put in.

I also helped my wonderful husband finish putting the playstructure frame up. We'll get the slide this week and then just need to add the 100+ rails to keep them from falling off and it's ready for playtime. Their will still be some finish work to do, but the goal was to have it ready to play on before my son's birthday on June 1st.

Still need to pull A LOT of weeds. I've already done a bunch, but they're coming up fast now. Oh and learning about new pests. I think this time I have white flies. All my plants under the Linden are curling up and have stickiness on them. I saw a few little flies over the past 2 days, but I've never had much experience with pests. The ants are building up there too, so I think that must be a good thing. The bed I think I was watering too much seems to be recovering and drying out. I added some rotting potatoes underground on sticks to distract any munchy bugs, I'll pull them up next week and see what I caught. Reminds me of putting out crawdad traps in the river and going back a few days later to full baskets. Those potatoes better be loaded with bugs ready for the furnace!

And speaking of pests... yesterday I only had 4 of my original 8 heirloom marigolds left in the morning. By afternoon I had 2 and 2 halves and the darn rabbits were so bold they were practically eating them in front of me. I sprinkled garlic powder all around the bed and on the plants and then it rained. My word, it reeked of garlic. I don't know if it was the rain or the garlic (or the neighborhood boys running around trying to catch them for pets), but I haven't seen the bunnies. However, I'm sure we won't have any Vampires around for a bit. I can still smell the stuff. Hehe...

Yesterday I spent the entire day pulling weeds in our front yard. The nice soaking rain we had the night before was really helpful to get up a lot a weed roots. Someday it will be a garden! For now it is a (mostly) weed-free yard.

Today I till and move earth.

I thought rabbits weren't supposed to like marigolds! Or is that just the deer? A friend told us to plant marigolds in with the veggies to help keep the critters out, so we did... hmmm.

I haven't done anything in my garden in the past 4 days because we're traveling... but we'll be back at it tomorrow!

This message was edited May 17, 2009 11:48 AM

Today I picked my first artichoke! mmmmm good! This was from a 2 year old plant. The artichoke wasn't much bigger than an orange but except for the very outer part was entirely edible. There are two more tiny buds just starting. The plants started from seed in January are growing but no way are they going to produce this year.

Oh, yum! Angele how wonderful, and how nice to "see" you here too!

Here it is 100 degrees out there, sheesh, but I just did a walk around and everybody seems fine with the copious watering I did in prep yesterday around 6:30 as I knew this was coming but phooey, hope the predicted cool down does arrive, this is gonna take a bit of getting used to..
but I am real glad it is not humid, still........ (what I moved out of leaving NC.)

durn it I have ants in the hbird feeder today too. stinkers.

;-)

Hello Angele. I love artichokes, as does all my family. My Dad laughed at me yesterday when he saw me trying to grow one here. I'll do what I can to help it over winter, we'll see.

It's supposed to hit high 80's here, which is enough to make me melt. I know that's nothing for some of you more SW of us, but I just can't take any heat at all. I was fussing last week when it hit mid 70s.

We worked from sun-up to sun-down Saturday and Sunday on the play structure for the kids and we're so close. Hopefully we'll get the slide this week and we need to build the ladders and add a few more small pieces of siding and cut a few more windows. Then just cosmetic stuff. Yay, then finally done with anything big for a long time. Here are some pictures of how it looks today.

A close up of the kiddling cabin.

Nice! What lucky kidlings!

Awesome playhouse!
I can't take the heat either. I just want to melt when it gets over 85. today is supposed to be in the 90s.

Hey Angele=). I thought of you yesterday. The spinch seeds you sent have done beutifuly. We had a spinch salad the other night =)

What a very cool playhouse! I'll bet your kiddos are ready to freak if they can't play on it soon.

For me, bring on the heat. Love it. Except yesterday. We finaly picked up my honey's truck in Hayward. 100 outside and he turns on the heater to keep the truck from overheating. Ugg. Definately took a cold shower when I got home.

That use of the heater does work, unpleasant though it is, a blown engine is worse.